But these formidable interruptions veritably happened, and received the
stern discipline in such cases made and provided.

But beside Quakers and witches, the ministers had other female
tormentors to deal with. There was the perpetual anxiety of the
unregenerated toilet. "Immodest apparel, laying out of hair, borders,
naked necks and arms, or, as it were, pinioned with superfluous
ribbons,"--these were the things which tried men's souls in those days,
and the statute-books and private journals are full of such plaintive
inventories of the implements of sin. Things known as "slash apparel"
seem to have been an infinite source of anxiety; there must be only one
slash on each sleeve and one in the back. Men also must be prohibited
from shoulderbands of undue width, double ruffs and cuffs, and
"immoderate great breeches." Part of the solicitude was for modesty,
part for gravity, part for economy: none must dress above their
condition. In 1652, three men and a woman were fined ten shillings each
and costs for wearing silver-lace, another for broad bone-lace, another
for tiffany, and another for a silk hood. Alice Flynt was accused of a
silk hood, but, proving herself worth more than two hundred pounds,
escaped unpunished. Jonas Fairbanks, about the same time, was charged
with "great boots," and the evidence went hard against him; but he was
fortunately acquitted, and the credit of the family saved.

The question of veils seems to have rocked the Massachusetts Colony to
its foundations, and was fully discussed at Thursday Lecture, March 7th,
1634. Holy Mr. Cotton was utterly and unalterably opposed to veils,
regarding them as a token of submission to husbands in an unscriptural
degree. It is pleasant to think that there could be an unscriptural
extent of such submission, in those times. But Governor Endicott and
Rev. Mr. Williams resisted stoutly, quoting Paul, as usual in such